Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Could Putin Be Ousted the Way Khrushchev Was – and for the Same Reason?

Paul Goble

Staunton, July 11 – Most Russians
today associate Nikita Khrushchev with the thaw, de-Stalinization, and the opening
of more comfortable five-story apartment blocks; but they did to forget that he
was removed from power by his colleagues because he ran the country in a hands
on way, intervening in some of the smallest details of Soviet life without
consulting colleagues.

Filin’s article provides interesting
details on the October 1964 events, but they prompt another question that may
be more important: Could Vladimir Putin be ousted as the result of the composition
and circulation of a report documenting the ways in which he has acted on his
own on a wide variety of issues and not on behalf of the leadership?

The conventional wisdom is that
because there is no Politburo in Russia today, Putin does not face such a
challenge. That is certainly true in the narrow sense. But Putin’s style of
rule, increasingly personalistic and arbitrary, is certainly alarming to at
least some of his colleagues.And thus
it is perhaps possible that such a report about Putin could be compiled as
well.

Were that to happen, it could split
the elite in ways that might lead some to move to oust Putin in a way not
terribly dissimilar to the ways Khrushchev was a half-century ago.At the very least, it might provoke
discussions in the corridors of power of the possible impact of continued
arbitrary power on the interests of the other members of the elite.

That in and of itself, Filin’s
article suggests about the events at the end of 1964, could have profound
consequences for Russia, its leadership and its current ruler.